Leveson and Dekker on Reason: How the Critics Got the Swiss Cheese Model Wrong

Abstract

Writers who seek to make their own names as theorists often begin by identifying the supposed deficiencies of great theorists who have come before them. They then go on to demonstrate how their own theorising supposedly overcomes these deficiencies. Accordingly, one way in which we can identify great theorists is by the extent to which later writers have sought to expose these supposed failings. By this criterion, Jim Reason is one of the great theorists of safety science. In this essay I shall examine two theorists who have rejected Reason’s work and I shall show that their arguments have little merit. The two I have chosen are Nancy Leveson and Sidney Dekker. Both are now influential in the field, claiming to have established new paradigms for safety practitioners and researchers. Both have developed their paradigms in part by repudiating Reason’s work, in particular his Swiss Cheese Model of accident causation. Show more